Freedom of Information Act 2000 Request

Information into the 152 cases where it was claimed 300 British people had died at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland

Request

Earlier this month, the Mirror newspaper ran an article claiming 300 British people had died at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland since 2009, prompting 152 cases being referred to Crown prosecutors of which three were prosecuted. A link to this story can be found here:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/detectives-probed-130-families-aiding-21274365

Please could you provide with the following:

a) A complete list of the 152 cases referred to in the article and the reasons why no further action was taken and

b) Any information held on the three cases that were successfully prosecuted, including dates and information on the arguments used by the defence etc.

Response

We have interpreted your request as asking for information about referrals relating to allegations of Assisted Suicide which involved the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. In order to ascertain the information as described in your request in parts (a) and (b) a manual review of each case referral would be required.

Section 12(1) of the FOI Act means public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request for information if it estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central government it is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days determining whether the department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. We believe that the cost of reviewing 156 referrals would exceed the appropriate limit. Consequently, we are not obliged to comply with that part of your request.

Under section 16 of the FOI Act we have an obligation to advise what, if any, information may assist you with your request. The CPS publishes data on its website pertaining to the number of referrals made to it, in respect of allegations made of assisted suicide. This number is quoted in the news article referenced in your request.

The information on the website has recently been updated to reflect the current figure of 156 referrals and this recent publication can be accessed via the following link. Please note that the data has been drawn from manual records which may be subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. These figures are provisional and subject to change as more information is recorded by the CPS.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/assisted-suicide

Information Management Unit 020 3357 0788 IMU@cps.gov.uk